The tide of new hirings started last fall, when Jason Moore, PhD, previously of Dartmouth College, was tapped to serve as Director of the new Institute for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania. The press release quotes the Dean of Penn's Perelman School of Medicine stating, "Because solving many of the most challenging biomedical problems today depends on our ability to integrate, analyze and interpret complex patterns in 'big data,' establishment of the institute emerged as a top priority in Penn Medicine's strategic plan. Under Jason’s leadership, I expect the institute will become a model of education, innovation and collaborative research at the interface of biomedical informatics, the basic sciences, and the clinical sciences."

These accolades bode well not only for my colleagues but also the entire informatics field, demonstrating that despite uncertainties in federal and other sources of funding for research, there is a critical role for informatics to play in academic health science centers, where they can contribute to improving individual health, the healthcare system, and population health.